Wood has long been an attractive and desirable element for flooring. When small blocks of wood are used, they are traditionally pre-assembled into tiles or panel sections for convenience of installation on a sub-floor.
A problem common to wood flooring is that the material tends to expand and contract significantly as a function of temperature and humidity. If enough space is left between adjacent pieces of wood to allow for expansion, the resultant gaps are unsightly and become filled with dirt. If the wood pieces are installed close together, subsequent swelling of the wood is likely to cause buckling and warping of the floor.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,365,850 describes a multiple-fillet wood tile that endeavors to accommodate the dimensional instability of wood. An improved solution to the problem is described in the co-pending above-noted application Ser. No. 231,862. That application discloses a wood flooring in which a foam cushion is interposed between adjacent wood fillets. When the wood fillets expand, the cushion between them is compressed. When the wood fillets shrink, the cushion expands to take up the space between the fillets.
Having established the desirability of having such an arrangement with a cushion between the wood fillets, it becomes desirable to have an inexpensive and efficient method and machine for the manufacture of such wood flooring in sheets or planks that are convenient to install. Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide a method and a machine for the manufacture of wood flooring having the elements just described.